


Wish I Was a Punk Rocker

by jeweledsong



Category: Captain Marvel (Marvel), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, F/M, M/M, Multi, Rock Band, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 21:18:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1702859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeweledsong/pseuds/jeweledsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows the Avengers have movie nights. They also get together and play a lot of Rock Band.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wish I Was a Punk Rocker

The Avengers play a surprising amount of Rock Band during downtime. JARVIS takes the conn, loading songs from all the game versions and swapping out instruments and characters as needed. It’s nice having an AI to run your gaming system.  
  


Carol plays guitar and sings along while she does it. Not usually into the microphone, though. She watches her section of the screen, letting the rest of the room blur out and just paying attention to the notes scrolling through the bottom of her track.  


Tony fights Carol for the guitar part. Well, not fighting so much as trading off when he comes out of the workshop alight with energy. “Carol—check this out. I’ve got an extra 15% power on the gauntlet repulsors and I added an aluminum-antimony coating to the lens surface,” he says, and his upraised hand sparkles gold.  


“I can do that without all the metal,” she counters, punctuating her statement with a tiny jet of light off her fingertip.  


“Look, some of us aren’t superhuman.”  


“Speak for yourself, Iron Man,” counters Rhodey behind the drum kit. “I’m totally a superhero.” Carol flicks more of her sparkles at him, grinning. She ducks out from under the guitar strap and holds it out.  


“Trade you gauntlet for Gibson, Tony.” He pulls his armored hand back against his chest protectively. “The last time you played with that on, you melted the controller.”  


“You’re going to melt my floor.”  


“Noooooooo,” she says unconvincingly. “I just want to find out what happens if I power it myself.”  


“JARVIS, initiate Protocol Sparklefists Squared,” commands Steve as he comes through the doorway.  


“Fire suppressant systems primed and Ms. Kawasaki and Ms. Potts on speed dial, Captain Rogers,” responds the AI.  


“Thank you. Now let me have the mike,” says Steve, reaching across the coffee table and flipping the wireless microphone into his hand. He flips it a couple more times, then gives Rhodey a nod. “Hit it.” Tony scrambles to strip off his gauntlet while the intro scrolls past, racing Rhodey’s cymbal hits to get his guitar on and his fingers on the frets. He nails the downstroke on “Under Pressure” just in time. Steve performs a compelling David Bowie impersonation. Natasha, appearing just in time, curls under his arm to sing Freddie Mercury’s vocals into the same microphone. He thoughtfully leans down as he gets into the part, and their cheeks touch.  


Carol slides her hand into the gauntlet and wiggles her fingers; it doesn’t quite fit and the wiring inside jabs her palm. She really was going to try overloading the prototype, but she decides to make Tony put it through its paces on the range for her instead. Contrary to popular belief, she does care about minimizing property damage.  


She watches Steve and Natasha with a little grin. By the time they’ve moved from “Space Oddity” (she didn’t think Steve would appreciate that song, but he takes the ground control part while Natasha sings about floating ‘round her tin can) to “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” Carol’s gaze has drifted over to the drummer. Rhodey is intensely focused on the screen, playing drums with the same concentration he directs toward the War Machine armor. A grin plays at the corner of his mouth. Carol knows what that feels like from the other side. The moment when you become one with your machine, when the dials and gauges and screens feel like they’re directly feeding your brain, when you don’t have to stop and think about anything but just fly—or play—like you were born to do nothing else. It looks as good on him as it feels to her. When the song finishes and he’s transformed his solidly competent bassline into a dramatic Big Rock Ending, he tosses his drumsticks into the air and catches them. He catches her eyes, too, and she smiles with only a hint of a blush.  


“I’m tagging in on bass. JARVIS, spin up something off that February download pack. You know the one.” Carol picks up the second guitar controller, setting the Iron Man gauntlet next to the collection of empty soda cans they’ve been building on the bar.  


“Indeed. Bonnie Tyler it shall be,” he replies, scrolling up the menus at the speed of artificial intelligence.  


Natasha sighs and scrounges through a drawer. “This one calls for two mikes, I’m afraid.”  


Steve does his best to look crestfallen as she steps away, but he loves Eighties power ballads just like Carol does. As the song loads and the piano starts, he raises his mike so it’s touching his lips. He sings the first phrase and steps back, setting the stage for Natasha. She sings beautifully, overacting just as much as the original vocals, throwing her whole body into the emotion.  


There’s a part where Carol’s bass track falls silent, and she leans over Rhodey’s shoulder, setting her lips against the smooth dark curve of his ear. “Once upon a time I was falling in love,” she whispers, just to watch the shiver run through his shoulders.  


“Did you have to do that?” he asks, keeping his eyes trained on the screen watching for his cymbal cue.  


“It entertains me,” she says, standing up just in time to get her face out of the way of his drumsticks. He shakes his head, fighting a smile, and they play on together. Carol, Rhodey, and Tony score every one of the Unison Bonuses the game offers. They fly like that too, when the three of them are in the air together.  


When the song comes to its end, Natasha looks back over her shoulder as Steve fades out, singing “turn around bright eyes…” She quirks a smile at him. He reaches out a hand and she takes it, allowing him to reel her in close. She ends up pressed against his chest, his arm wrapped around her. He brushes the back of his right hand, still holding the microphone, across her cheek and hair and sings softly, “Once upon a time there was light in my life; now there’s always love in my heart. Nothing I would do, the spider has captured my heart.”  


As the ranking officer in the room, Carol allows herself a moment to consider how utterly adorable they are. Then she bounces a pretzel off of Steve’s ass. “Rogers! If you’re gonna make time with the assassin, give up the mikes. Some of us have important Bon Jovi business.”  


“Excuse you. I haven’t inhumed anyone in weeks,” says Natasha, pulling back from the kiss and looking over at Carol. Over time, the Avengers have learned the fine subtleties of Natasha’s death glare. This one has hardly any death in it.  


“Fair enough,” she replies. “My point stands. Either you and Captain Carrot sing or you hand over the instruments.”  


Natasha looks back at Steve, considering. He’s blushing red but still smiling. “I’ll yield,” she says, and his blush deepens.  


Rock Band is something like a bat-signal for off-duty Avengers. The clicking of the fret buttons and the thud of the kick drum pedal tends to summon whomever has time to kill, so nobody is surprised to see Sam and Clint come in fresh off a sparring session. Today Clint has a bandaid over his nose, which makes it a day ending in Y. Sam sizes up the situation and looks at the mike in Steve's hand. "Before you take off, hotshot, care to do one last song?"  


"What do you have in mind, Falcon?" Steve lays a teasing emphasis on Sam's codename.  


"I am a city boy born and raised in South, well, Harlem."  


"I'm a small town girl? Is that how it is?"  


"That's how it is."  


"Rogers, sing or flirt. Pick one." Carol is grinning too, poorly feigning a curt order.  


"No, sorry, I can't do that."  


Sam sighs fondly. "Play it JARVIS. Play it again."  


As the whole band swings into "Don't Stop Believin’ " Natasha leans back against the wall to watch cheerfully. Sam and Steve trade verses, leaning closer and closer into each other's space. They end up interlocking their mike arms and improvising harmonies. Sam is fighting to keep a straight face, because it’s difficult to sing through a grin. Steve, watching him, keeps wiggling his eyebrows to get Sam to crack and miss his cues. It works maybe once, but Steve is an optimist.  


Meanwhile Carol and Rhodey lay down flawless rock solid basslines. She slams into overdrive just as he finishes a fill and triggers his own. They're both smiling, aware of each other even though their eyes are trained on the screen. As the song fades away, Rhodey leans back and turns his face up toward Carol. She slings her guitar on to her back and kisses him soundly, bracing her hands on his shoulders. She really shouldn't have been surprised to hear Steve clear his throat. "Ma'am, what was that about kiss or rock?"  


"Shut it, Captain," laughs Rhodey, not pulling back in the slightest.  


"Yessir." Steve drops an affectionate kiss on Sam's smile and goes to retrieve Natasha. She offers him some of her soda and slides a hand around his waist and into his jeans pocket.  


Tony, who has been tearing it up on guitar the entire set, looks over at his armor gauntlet. "This may be my last song. I've got some tests I want to run and I think the parts will be finished by now."  


"Gimme the mike. We all know there's only one way to close out Rock Band," says Clint, rolling his shoulders as he steps forward. "Livin' on a Prayer, if you please." His Iowa twang comes to the fore as he sings. "Tommy used to work on the docks..."  


For this one, JARVIS always sets the system to no-fail mode. It’s not about scoring, it’s about rocking hard and being ridiculous. Carol and Tony play their guitars back to back for a bit. Then they turn and lean in toward each other, making serious rock and roll faces. Until they crack each other up, that is, and just sing along while they play the wow-wow-wow parts and hit the whammy bars as hard and fast as they can.  


Clint Barton is the greatest sharpshooter known to man, but Natasha thinks he missed his true calling as a rockstar. He leans way into the mike, he jumps up and down, he runs across the room, and he spins and holds the mike out to the audience (currently Sam, Steve, and Nat, and JARVIS) for them to sing along on the chorus. The house rule is “no sparring in the living room, and no acrobatics either, Clint, that means you.” He mostly goes along with it, though he does jump onto the coffee table once. Or twice. Natasha doesn’t have the heart to call him out for it.  


As the song finishes the room is full of laughter and delight. They all pack away their instruments, shoving the drum kit into a closet and hanging the guitars on the closet wall. Carol clicks the door shut and, looking at Rhodey, tips her head towards the balcony. He smiles and leads the way, stepping out into the sunshine and looking up at the clear sky. “That’s more fun than it has any right to be,” he says. Carol smirks.  


“I think the War Machine is going to get jealous of your drum set.”  


“There’s no power in the ‘verse can get me out of the sky. The only one that could come close is right up there next to me.”  


Carol, as usual, covers her emotion with snark. “Next to you? I think you’ll find I’m in front of you, above you, and flying rings around you.”  


Rhodey doesn’t let her get away with it. “You can be my wingman any time, I can be yours, et cetera. But seriously, Carol, there’s nobody else I want to fly with.”  


“You’re pretty great yourself, Rhodey.” She meets his eyes honestly for a long moment. Then she deliberately flicks her gaze downward over the planes of his shoulders and chest and steps closer. “Also you’re a damn good kisser.”  


“Is that so?” Rhodey reaches for her, pulling her in by the hem of her t-shirt. She crowds him back against the wall and he goes easily, sliding his free hand into her hair so he can demonstrate just how well he kisses. Repeatedly. And enthusiastically.

**Author's Note:**

> Playlist: “Under Pressure”, Queen and David Bowie. “Space Oddity”, David Bowie. “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”, Blue Öyster Cult. “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, Bonnie Tyler. “Don’t Stop Believin’ ”, Journey. “Livin’ on a Prayer”, Bon Jovi.
> 
>  
> 
> Title from "I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in My Hair)", Sandi Thom.  
> Antimony and aluminum are used in fireworks to create gold sparkle effects.  
> “Inhumed” and “Captain Carrot” are references to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.  
> The Steve/Sam section was inspired by this lovely fanart: http://pidgeyons.tumblr.com/post/83527338313/sam-and-steve-singing-hilariously-out-of-tune-at-2  
> “You can be my wingman” is a quote from Top Gun. I am just certain that’s one of Carol and Rhodey’s favorite movies to watch and snark at.


End file.
